


Butterflies (The Beautiful Kind)

by notalone91



Series: All I Know Is Pouring Rain (Everything Has Changed) [6]
Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Adult Losers Club (IT), Babies, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Failed Adoption, Family, Fluff, Kid Fic, LGBTQ Themes, Love, M/M, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Soft Eddie Kaspbrak, Soft Richie Tozier, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, Supportive Losers Club (IT), Surrogacy, also, also see if you can spot the blink and you miss it reference to Stranger Things, also tw for Michael Jackson, but only for like a couple of paragraphs, georgie's only in a flashback, georgie's still dead, sorry bill, there's a movie quote that's also a kids book quote and i HAD TO WORK THAT IN
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-02-28 23:47:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23341954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalone91/pseuds/notalone91
Summary: The nebulous idea of kids had surrounded Richie and Eddie their whole lives.  What did the path to their finally becoming dads look like?
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Minor or Background Relationship(s), Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Series: All I Know Is Pouring Rain (Everything Has Changed) [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1493003
Comments: 7
Kudos: 53





	Butterflies (The Beautiful Kind)

Speeding through the entryway of the hospital, a tall man skidded to a stop at the receptionist’s desk. Pushing his floppy curls back and adjusting his glasses, he managed to get right to the point. “I’m Richie Tozier. I’m here for-”

“We know, Mr. Tozier,” the woman smiled warmly. “Room 503.”

As he took off toward the elevators, he thought, briefly, that he should be used to hospitals by now. And, at that point, he had pretty much gotten good things out of them, he supposed. Why, then, couldn’t he shake the ominous fear? Maybe because there were always so many outcomes...

As it was, he felt like he'd tested his luck enough. Managing to get out of Maine with his husband in one piece was an outcome that didn’t look particularly likely, there for a minute.

The end of the third week of Eddie's inpatient physical and occupational rehabilitation was the toughest on him. He'd felt weaker and less stable with each day. All of his doctors said he was pushing himself too hard. That diagnosis went double from Richie. When the woman who was in charge of Eddie's care approached Richie about a weekend off where they more or less let them be, the only scheduled "exercise" being Richie taking Eddie out to walk and be in the sun twice a day, he could have kissed her. 

They headed out into the meditation gardens, both bundled warmly against the rapidly descending temperature. When it had become clear that it would be winter before Eddie was released, Richie had made a dash for warner clothes. He remembered Maine being cold as balls when he was a kid. After decades in LA, he was pretty sure he would likely be a popsicle before long. 

Eddie's tight grasp on Richie's hand and arm was reassuring. In light of recent events, both found a renewed need to check that the other was there. They took a few steps away from Eddie’s wheelchair and looked at the new-fallen snow and the tiny snow angel left in the courtyard. "Before, you asked me if I was afraid of kids," Eddie mused, remembering too vividly the little girl in the Neibolt house.

Eyes wide and tugging Eddie onto a nearby bench, Richie balked, putting their still untouched coffees from the cart upstairs beside him. “Babe, we don't-”

“I'm not,” Eddie interrupted. He shook his head and took Richie’s ungloved hand between his two gloved ones, attempting to warm him up. “I'm afraid of me,” he confessed.

Richie felt a little like he’d missed a pivotal piece of the conversation; the Rosetta stone that would unlock just how in the hell that made sense. “What are you talking about?” he asked gently.

Looking up at the grey winter sky, Eddie shook his head. His mother was probably rolling in her grave that he was out in this cold without a scarf, in nothing but pajamas and a big fluffy bathrobe, even if he did have Richie’s gloves on at the moment. And he was all the better for it. Look at me now, ma, he thought. “I don't want to be the type of parent who smothers their kid and force-feeds them placebos and makes them into the town freak because they're afraid of dirt and germs and…” he thought back to all of the things he missed out on because he was afraid; because his mom said this or his mom said that. Fear Mongering was something she had ingrained in him and, somehow, he could feel the pressure of her lumpy, clammy hand on his shoulder every time he imagined himself and Richie as parents. Richie would want to take the kid  _ to the zoo _ . He would _ love  _ to be _ calm _ about it but  _ don’t you remember what happened to the little kid who fell in the gorilla pit, Richie!  _ I  _ know  _ you aren’t going to let them but _ if you turn your back for a second! _ And  _ do you know how many people touch those railings!  _ He tried hard to banish the thoughts from his head. “Normal kid stuff.” He looked over at Richie and frowned. “I don't want to be my mom.”

“Eddie…” He moved a little closer and kissed the top of his head, handing him his coffee with a sad smile.

“No, just, before you interrupt and try to placate me, understand this.” He tilted himself toward Richie with a groan and put his free hand on Richie’s cheek. “I want kids. I want kids  _ with you  _ more than just about anything.” Noticing the tears welling in his partner’s eyes, he looked down at the lid of his coffee cup, noting the slight tremor, and expelled an exasperated laugh. “I want a normal family life where the only clown I ever have to face is the one I wake up next to every morning. But, I am terrified that I won’t be good enough. Especially now.” 

There were times when Richie was pretty sure that he and Eddie shared one functioning brain cell. If that was the case, he figured it must have been Eddie’s turn with it that day. “Especially now? What are you-”

He held his hand out a little further and the tremor worsened. The mere thought of trying to lift something five times as heavy for an extended period of time brought back schoolyard taunts that accompanied Richie, Stan, and Mike missing everything that was thrown to them. “I can't even hold a coffee cup without-”

“You're exhausted,” Richie said. 

There was an air of finality to his tone that should have calmed Eddie. It wasn’t dismissive, it was sure. And anything that Richie was sure of, Eddie should have trusted. He knew that. But still… “I'm not,” he argued stubbornly.

“You are,” Richie insisted, bringing his hand up to gently thumb away the tears that had begun to fall, proving his point. “And that's okay.” Eddie shook his head and tried to pull back, but Richie carried on, sliding in closer. “Listen to me. Okay?” No response, just a focused gaze at the slight movement of a coffee cup. Richie took the cup away and put it on the ground, leaving his hand in its place. “Eddie,” he still wouldn’t look up, so Richie moved to a crouch in front of him. “Babe, you are going to be the best dad. The best. Okay?” He nodded, then gestured up to the now steady stream of tears falling from his partner’s eyes. “This? This is because you care.” He smiled and stood, pulling Eddie to his feet with him. “You care more than any other person in the world. But-” he noticed that Eddie had turned away, pressing his cheek to Richie’s shoulder, sniffling harder. “Hey, you still with me?” A silent nod. “Eds, we don't have to talk about this now. We have time.” He adjusted his grip on the man in his arms and pressed his lips to his temple. “You're getting better, but you're killing yourself.”

Eddie let out a quiet sob. “I want to go home.”

“I know,” Richie sighs against him. “I know, babe. Me too.” He steps back and looks at Eddie for a moment, his tone suddenly much more serious. “But, I need you to be okay.”

Crossing his arms over his chest, Eddie huffs a little, following after Richie who’d gone back to retrieve their abandoned cups. “And what if I'm not? What if I can never walk more than fucking sixty feet without sitting down and can't lift something heavier than 24 ounces for more than a minute,” he asks, reaching out for his coffee and taking a sip.

“Then, we figure it out from there,” Richie smirked, walking backward past Eddie’s long since forgotten wheelchair, raising his eyebrow to point it out.

Realizing that he was standing and now walking completely unsupported, even just toward the wheelchair, he gawked. “What the fuck?” All of his previous sessions had been nothing but frustration but, apparently, a little distraction was just the trick.

Which Richie knew. He knew the whole time. One of the doctors had suggested that he try occupying his mind so that his body might switch to doing things by rote and Richie had been more than happy to oblige. “What?” 

“How are you so calm?” Eddie asked, pushing the chair along slowly. “About all of this?”

Richie shrugged. “You're awake. You're alive,” he looked down at the ground and kicked at a small pile of snow absently before taking a sip of his coffee. “This is cake,” he said, nudging down the brakes on the wheelchair and offering a hand to aide Eddie in sitting down before handing off his own cup and pushing him back toward the building. 

Not far from the door, Eddie reached up and tugged at Richie’s sleeve, pulling him around to the front. “What if we fuck them up?” he asked quietly.

Without meaning any harm, Richie gave a slight chuckle. “Babe, I think that’s literally what every single person fears most about parenthood.” He leaned forward and kissed him on the forehead.

“Yes, but not everyone has dealt with having to see their fears brought to life in sparkling Technicolor,” Eddie pointed out, waving his fingers dramatically.

Simply shaking his head, Richie smiled. “Which makes us uniquely qualified,” was his only answer. “Look, while we're rehashing this, can I…” he hesitated, pushing Eddie’s wheelchair over toward a small patio table, out of the way of anyone else who might happen by. “Can I ask you something?”

“When have you ever asked for permission?” Eddie scoffed.

Richie looked down at his folded hands for a moment. He didn’t want to bring any of this up ever again, but he knew they would have to if they were ever going to move past it. Stanley and Patty had already done it and she wasn’t even involved. He’d walked in on an intimate discussion between Bev and Ben about what had happened below Neibolt. Mike had told him about a long, long talk with Bill about what the time apart had been like for Mike and what forgetting had been like for Bill. They were all working toward getting past it. It was true that Eddie had bigger things to deal with, but he still couldn’t help but feel like if they didn’t take the opportunities as they arose, they might never get past it.

Maybe that round of therapy his manager had insisted on when he started to lash out against the writers wasn’t the worst thing in the world after all...

“This is different,” he insisted.

He would have been lying if Eddie had said that the serious switch in the flow of the conversation didn’t give him pause. “Okay,” he said hesitantly. “Go ahead.”

Words had always been Richie’s strong suit. He made his living twisting them, after all. Still, in that moment, they failed him. “The first time you saw Mikey after…” he sighed and scrubbed his face with his hands, “after you woke up, you mentioned something about a thunderstorm in your head. What did you mean by that?”

Blinking rapidly, not having expected the conversation to go there, he stammered. “Oh. Um. Well,” Eddie picked at a piece of lint on his pajama pants and flicked it away, trying desperately not to look at Richie. “This is going to be hard to explain.”

“Try me,” Richie asked quietly.

If Eddie took a minute or five to assemble his thoughts, he deserved every last one. Trying to put the pieces together wasn’t far off from what he imagined trying to put confetti back in a stadium confetti canon would be like. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and picked a point to start with. “You described the deadlights as falling through scenes of your life, right?” Richie nodded. Eddie had figured it would be best to start with a baseline for what he was talking about and draw from that. “Bev said she thought she was dead,” he supplied as well. “Well, while I was unconscious, it was more like walking through an endless room that was right next to where you guys were.” He looked to Richie, trying to monitor just how disconcerting his experience truly was. He thought about it, trying to recapture the fleeting details and marry them with the stronger ones, the ones he was fairly certain he would be stuck with for life. “I could hear you,” he said quietly. “Sometimes, things would be adjusted by what you did, or how you felt.” He reached for Richie’s hand, sensing his confusion and concern.

In Richie’s mind, his frantic, desperate presence couldn’t have been anything more than an immense hindrance. He’d imagine that trying to navigate your subconscious with a terrified, sobbing Richie would likely be akin to trying to concentrate on your SATs with a screaming baby pounding on a piano. He immediately wanted to apologize for his actions, without even knowing what he’d done.

Eddie laced their fingers together and kissed the back of Richie’s hand. “I couldn’t tell you how long it was between things I remember or if they were even in the right order, but I know it was right.” He smiled and shook his head, remembering the constant driving force that brought him through. “I know that the number one thing that kept me pulling through all of it was you.”

“Me?” Richie asked, somehow stunned.

Knowing that he should have expected as much, Eddie nodded. He wheeled himself close enough that their knees were touching and leaned forward, resting their foreheads together. “My need to get back to you,” he assured. 

He leaned back and tried to pick the memory he thought came first, but that was a losing battle and he knew it. Still, he had to try. “The first thing I remember is Bill saying something like ‘This doesn’t feel right.’” Richie nodded, apparently remembering the conversation in question. Eddie relaxed, realizing that maybe he wasn’t crazy after all. ”Well, I heard him and took off running because if Bill was there, maybe you were too, and I just had to find you. Then, he said ‘You need to be okay.’ And it hit me that something was weird.” He stopped for a moment, realizing that that was, really, the turning point. “Before that,” he admitted, “I’d been pretty sure that I was dead.” 

The way Richie was looking at Eddie was a good contender for breaking his heart. He knew that bringing up anything that insinuated his death would sting, but it was true. Eddie had thought that he’d been dead. There was nothing until he started hearing the Losers, but most of all Richie. Richie became his hold; something to fight for. “It was all too white, too bright, and I just kept moving toward wherever my brain thought I needed to be.” 

The pair grew silent, working through everything that had been said. Eddie knew he had to get to the answer to Richie’s question sooner or later, so he started trying to get back on that path. “Was there a night where Mike was crying and talking to me?” he asked, trying not to sound like he knew the answer.

“Yeah,” Richie answered, voice unsure and hardly above a whisper, “Yeah, there was.” He inched forward in the chair, snow crunching at his feet as he shifted, and gathered Eddie’s hands in his. “Babe, what you need to understand is that we never left you alone.” Eddie eyed him skeptically, but Richie’s insistence was sincere. He continued, despite not truly needing to. “Not once. So, yes. That happened. Not only that, but it happened at least once with each of the Losers,” he hesitated for a moment before, embarrassed, adding, “More with some of us.”   


Sighing, Eddie traced his thumb gently over Richie’s. If that was the case, he truly had to wonder about the bond they all had. For his friends to have such direct access to his psyche, they must all be closer than he knew. “Well, for whatever reason,” he surmised, “when Mike was crying that night, it turned into this massive thunderstorm.” He remembered the bizarre rain. Growing drenched, but never wet. The rain never accumulated. It was just there. And the more upset Mike grew, the more tumultuous the weather grew. “He must have been a mess,” he said, not realizing what an understatement that truly was, “but your voice cut through.”

It was Richie’s turn for skepticism, then. He leaned back a little, trying to remember if there was a night where he walked in on Mike crying. There was. Of course, there was. But that wasn’t anything that should have played in for Eddie… should it? “I guess you came in and started to comfort him or maybe forgave him?” Richie looked shocked but nodded. That night had been so early on. How could he know? The amazement on Richie’s face was enough for Eddie. He shrugged lightly and rolled his wheelchair up so that he and Richie were side by side. “Well, it calmed the storm.” He leaned in and kissed Richie deeply, as he’d been so often and freely doing lately, it must have made the others sick. “You brought me back, Richie,” he said quietly, trying desperately not to cry. “I was looking for you and I woke up and you were here.”

The whole concept was making Richie’s mind run wild. He couldn’t focus on anything. Sensing the frantic confusion, Eddie landed on a simple clincher. Smiling, he leaned in and pressed a gentle kiss to Richie’s lips. “I’m glad you didn’t let me go. I’m not ready to go yet.”

“Never,” Richie said, stifling the faintest of gasps. He knew what he’d asked. He’d suspected, when Eddie mentioned that he had been aware and as it became clearer that he remembered it all, that his worry that the doctors may have been right about the life support would come up. But he hadn’t expected it framed like this; like a secret told between two boys at a sleepover who shouldn’t have still been awake. He couldn’t help the tears streaming down his face as he gathered Eddie in his arms, coming undone himself, insisting and assuring, “Never, never, never.”

The couple stayed like that for quite some time, holding each other and talking through little moments. When the snow that had been threatening to return finally did and chased them back inside, Richie made sure to take some detours on the way back to Eddie’s room. One wrong turn landed them in a room with a naked, anatomically correct mannequin, which certainly required some ridiculous selfies to cheer them up. Despite his protests, one of Eddie staring with the deepest confusion laced with disgust made its way to Richie’s screensaver.

But, as it turns out, Richie had never been one to let Eddie off with just some light teasing, just like letting go was never an option.

“RICHARD JUSTIN TOZIER, I SWEAR TO GOD IF YOU LET GO-”

Eddie wasn’t big on Winter. Never had been. Never would be. He preferred his outdoor activities to be warm, with his feet securely under him. Certainly not with huge knife blades affixed to flimsy leather boots.

How in the fuck had he managed to let the Losers talk him into going ice skating? Did they know how many different ways you could get seriously hurt or die just by falling on or, worse, through the fucking ice? Why did he have to have friends who were so dead set on killing themselves? And why did Stanley have to swing the vote? He and Mike were against it. All they needed was one more. Since fucking when was Stanley on Richie, Bill, and Ben’s side for anything? They weren’t the sane ones! If he had said no like he was supposed to, it would have been a tie and they’d have done something else. Stanley hated ice skating, so what the fuck was his deal. And why did he keep looking at Richie and Bill like that?! Were they hiding something?

Oh, God, they were.

And what was that goofy smile Richie had plastered on his face?

Fuck these guys, he thought. 

By the time they’d finally gotten down to the frozen lake and gotten all of their skates (and Eddie’s knee and elbow pads, thank you very fucking much,) it had become clear that Stanley may have been the mastermind behind it all. With the clarity of hindsight, he had more or less shoved Mike into Bill's arms, Eddie into Richie’s, then sped off laughing, pulling a confused Ben, who had really just wanted to play hockey, along behind.

Richie laughed, trying to ease Eddie’s raging insecurity. Still, they were both going to go down with a thud if he couldn’t manipulate his center of gravity. “I'm not letting go, Eds. Chill out. I'm fixing my grip,” he assured, moving to wrap his arms more around his friend’s middle. Still, asshole that he was, he feigned surprise and pulled back, even if his arms were never more than an inch away.

“Don't,” Eddie yelped, grabbing a fistful of Richie’s jacket in a panicked response.

Spinning the pair of them in an easy circle, he teased, “Don't what?”

“Let go!” Smacking the side of Richie’s head lightly, Eddie managed to wriggle himself into a more steady position, not unlike an awkward slow dance.

A glint of mischief blazed in Richie’s eyes and Eddie knew he’d chosen his words poorly. “Let go?” he asked playfully, taking his hands off of Eddie in snatch grabs.

Pulling himself close and attempting to fling his arms around the taller boy, Eddie slipped, raking himself down Richie’s front. “Richie, no!” he screamed, managing to get his arms around Richie’s waist on the way down, grounding them both in a tangle of arms and legs and scarves and shoelaces.

Through the ensuing fit of giggles, Richie managed a shocked, “Sorry,” which laid buried beneath the smacks Eddie was landing on him. “Sorry,” he repeated, trying to distract himself from Eddie. (Eddie on top of him. Eddie with his legs around his waist. Eddie, trying hard to be mad to cover up the same half-smile he tried to hide when he was “so pissed” at Richie. Eddie, right there. Eddie so close he could just reach up and k- nope.) 

Nope.

Nope, nope,  _ nope! _

Richie managed to snake his legs out from under Eddie with impressive dexterity and clambered to his feet. He let the ice take him back a couple of feet and watched as Eddie frantically tried to upright himself.

“Don't do that again, fuckhead!” he yelled, throwing one of his mittens at Richie and wailing him right in the side of the face.

Picking up the knitwear and flinging it back, he retorted, “You were doing it on your own, dipshit!”

The boy had been so preoccupied with having Richie close by that he hadn’t even stopped to realize that he was right. “I was?” he asked, thinking back over it. He had, indeed, only started to fall when Richie was nearby, right there to catch him. 

Well, that was a lot to think about that he certainly didn’t want to focus on just then.

Still, arms crossed and standing what felt like 10 feet above Eddie, still sprawled on the ice, Richie nodded. “You were.”

“Maybe,” he said quietly, swatting at Richie’s now outstretched hand, “Maybe I just don't want you to let go.”

That was too close to feelings for Richie’s comfort level, especially with the other Losers still around somewhere. Speaking of which, he glanced around, finding no sight of their friends anywhere, then let himself make a tame, but pointed hit. “Ooh, baby. Whatever will Sonia think?” he asked, wagging his eyebrows above his glasses suggestively before leaning down with his tongue hanging out.

And Eddie panicked. In their never-ending game of chicken, Eddie had just balked it big time. “Jesus,” he yelled, pushing Richie away and sliding backward, “Shut your fucking mouth, idiot. Why do you have to bring my mother into everything?” He brought one hand up in front of his face frantically and twisted his expression into one of stunned disgust. “Do you know how twisted that is? That’s wrong on, like, every possible level.” Still, despite his flustered reaction, Richie stayed put, watching the whole thing, amused, before Eddie broke, too, throwing out a weak, “Jerk,” and tried to help himself up off the ice but landed smack back on his rear end.

A crooked smile lit up Richie’s face. “See, ya still needed me, Eds,” he said, gliding closer and reextending his hand.

“Yeah, yeah, yuck it up,” Eddie groaned, “Now help me up, asshole.”

Richie glanced down at his hand, as though unsure as to whether or not Eddie could see that it had been out for him pretty much all along. “As you wish,” he said, grabbing the smaller boy and helping him to his feet easily. 

As soon as he did, they both hesitated, a little breathless from the cold and the activity, and maybe the proximity to one another. Eddie’s hands rested on Richie’s shoulders, Richie’s likewise on Eddie’s waist. Their eyes met and for just the briefest of times, Eddie thought how easy it would be just to kiss him and be done with it. Richie realized, at the same time, that he could confess it all and split and, because they were on ice, for the first time in his life, he had the advantage of speed and surety. Eddie would never be able to catch him if things didn’t go well. All he had to do was say it.

But he didn’t. 

And Eddie didn’t.

Not yet, anyway.

Still, once they did, as many of the things that changed, so many still stayed the same, not the least of which being their friends, for as long as they remained in Derry. By the time their Health and Human Development class was chosen as a test group for the brand new BabyThinkItOver system as a way of trying to discourage teen pregnancy, they were down to three. Which left Mike to find his own partner for the project- a fact he was none too happy about.

The three boys piled into the cab of Mike’s truck on their way home that Thursday and the contrast was clear. Mike had lobbed the thing into the bed with his backpack. Richie, on the other hand, had buckled the doll in his lap. He may have been partially mocking Mike by contrast, sure, but also, partially because this was a really cool technology and an aspect of the class he wanted to show off. And the showing off certainly had nothing to do with wanting to rack up future brownie points with his boyfriend. Definitely not. Riding bitch, however, Eddie unknowingly put himself in the warzone.

“Why did they make us split into groups for this?” Mike whined, banging his hands on the steering wheel. He’d been ranting since they walked out of 7th period and hadn’t really stopped, slamming lockers and doors all along the way. “We don’t live together so how in the hell is this supposed to be helpful?” He threw the truck into reverse and pulled out of the spot, chirping his tires on the way out of the lot. Eddie and Richie exchanged concerned looks, despite still suppressing laughter. “If and when we have kids, there’s going to be another parent involved. All this is going to mean is that I’m going to resent Jason every other day.” Out of the corner of his vision, Eddie pretended not to catch Richie mouth the word ‘resent’ over a couple of times, nodding, a non-verbal ‘is that what the kids are calling it these days?’ Eddie laughed and stepped lightly on Richie’s toes, shaking his head demonstratively as Mike continued. “And- And ordinarily I like the guy which is why I picked him for this stupid project.”

“Spoken like a true self-respecting single mother,” Richie laughed, absently trailing his thumb over the doll’s cheek. Eddie had to try very hard not to be too distracted by it. He would certainly not let a project whose very goal was to advocate against teen pregnancy give him baby fever. He was  _ gay  _ for fuck’s sake. No matter how hard or often he rode Richie, or vice versa,  _ neither  _ of them was getting knocked up. 

Still, Mike was not letting it go. “Oh, drop dead, Trashmouth,” he snapped, picking up an empty soda can from the cup holder and winging it across the seat at Richie. More accurately, at Richie's Baby ThinkItOver. When Richie deflected it ably and put it back in the cupholder in one fell swoop without getting so much as a peep from the computerized kid, Mike groaned, leaning hard against his window.

Flinching away from the flight path of any further projectiles, Eddie slid even closer to Richie, leaving Mike room to let out his frustration. “Jesus! You’re really fired up about this, aren’t you?” 

Mike’s eyes grew wide and he turned to look at his friends. “They decide to roll out these demon robot psychos on Derry High as a test run? Like we haven’t dealt with enough?” Richie gave in and started to laugh. If Mike was comparing a bunch of noisy babydolls to Pennywise, he clearly had his priorities twisted. Nevertheless, he continued. “Yeah, I’m fucking pissed! I don’t need some computer system waking me up at three in the morning while I try to decode what it wants.”

Sighing and rolling his eyes in a way that made Richie and Mike both ache for Stanley to come back, Eddie groaned “It’s trying to deter-”

“I know what it’s trying to deter!” Mike yelled, making the turn onto Eddie’s street and stopping the truck at the corner, a rule because Mrs. Kaspbrak was in no way shape or form okay with Eddie getting a ride home with anyone, let alone a teenager, especially when she had such unique and creative names for Mike and Richie when it was just Eddie who could hear. He adjusted to look at his friends, flabbergasted. “Why aren’t you two more pissed about it? I mean, you two got paired up together!” 

The couple simply shrugged. They couldn’t say ‘it’s good practice.’ They couldn’t say ‘we make a good team.’ They certainly couldn’t say ‘we’ve been sleeping in the same bed most nights for the last couple of years so it’s the most realistic experiment of anyone’s.’ So, they chose to say nothing. 

Richie unbuckled his seatbelt and started gathering up his stuff, passing the doll off to Eddie seamlessly. Mike didn’t even seem to notice. “So what happens tomorrow when you can’t stay awake through Civ and it’s because of this little screaming thing that’s half your responsibility and half Richie’s?” 

Sitting back up and taking it back from Eddie, allowing him to do the same. “You are aware that you are not the biological parent of your BabyThinkItOver, right, Mikey?” he asked, climbing out of the truck and putting the doll up on his shoulders, leaving room for Eddie to hop out of the cab as well.

“Whatever,” Mike groaned as the door closed, shouting out the window. “I’ll see you guys tomorrow morning.”

Richie leaned into Eddie as they watched Mike’s truck drive out of sight and said, confidentially, “He’s lost his expectant glow.”

“You’re a dick,” he laughed, elbowing him in the ribs and starting to walk into the trees that created the property lines, immediately reaching for Richie’s hand.

He swatted his hand away and pointed, feigning offense as he jabbed at Eddie’s chest, then gesturing back to himself and the doll. “Your dick is what got us into this situation, Mister,” he teased.

Eddie rolled his eyes and managed to capture his hand finally. “You’re coming over tonight, right?” he asked, coming to a stop in the blind spot just outside of his back yard.

As if he’d had to ask. “Of course. Right after work,” Richie assured. He gave Eddie a quick kiss and his usual “Bye, babe.” Then, he handed the doll off to Eddie who instinctively propped it on his hip. “Bye, my sweet little Meg,” Richie said, kissing the doll on the head. “Be good for Daddy.”

Finally, he was able to give the doe-eyed, lovestruck reaction he’d wanted to since the doll was dropped on his desk. “Meg?” he asked over his shoulder, laughing a little as he called after his boyfriend.

With a broad smile, Richie called over his shoulder. “Megan Tron.”

“Megan… Jesus, Richie,” he laughed, bouncing the doll on his hip as it cooed. “Megan Tron?” He shook his head. Of course, his boyfriend was the king of the dorks. Of course. But he still loved him regardless. 

Nevertheless, he wasn’t going to be able to take himself seriously calling the doll that, even if it seemed silly to give it a name at all. He couldn’t help himself, though, from tossing some other things around. “Megan Tozier,” he said quietly, ignoring the ever-pressing idea of calling himself Eddie Tozier. “Megan Kaspbrak,” he attempted, again avoiding the curiosity to play with the thought of hearing Richie Kaspbrak come up in conversation and knowing that that meant Richie- his Richie. He certainly didn’t hate that idea. “Megan Kaspbrak-Tozier,” he suggested to himself and felt his insides turn warm and mushy. Eddie Kaspbrak-Tozier. Richie Kaspbrak-Tozier. He felt his cheeks start to redden and pressed one to the cool plastic of the doll’s. 

Laughing, realizing how ridiculous he must look, a seventeen-year-old boy standing out in the woods cradling a babydoll, he was overcome with an idea. He took to wrapping the doll to look as lifelike as possible. When he’d swaddled her in the tiny blanket she came with, he mussed his hair up to look a little more frazzled. Then, he found a position for her in his arms that looked believable for an actual infant to be in. Finally, he cooked up a little story about a certain redheaded Loser who had popped back in a little while ago to visit and, well, surprise, Ma! He couldn’t believe what he was going to do, but now that the idea was in his head, he couldn’t get it out. “Let’s go see if we can’t give your Grandmonster a heart attack, okay?” He laughed as he moved in through the back gate, whispering to the small bundle in his arms. “Roll out…”

Heart attack was pretty close. Eddie slunk into the house as guiltily as possible, then shook Megan a little harder than what one would classify as a rocking motion. As soon as he did, she let out a piercing scream that he managed to quell. His mother yelled out for him and he quietly edged into the room, keeping his back to the wall and the doll’s face hidden. His mother blanched then turned scarlet and they were off. He worked up some tears and spilled his whole sordid story. “And now she’s here, and she’s mine, and I don’t care. She’s all I have left of-” he trailed off, imagining shaking Billy Crystal’s hand at the Oscars over this riveting and raw performance. “She’s a part of me. I can’t lose that.”    


His mask began to slip as his mother rounded on him, railing on and on about the dirty girl and how could he possibly be sure that anything she said was true. Almost instantly, he regretted bringing Bev into it. He’d forgotten how much ire his mother had for her.

Mrs. Kaspbrak was never shy about her intention for her son's life. Once something got in the way of that- the brazen girl that trailed after his friends, the fussy Christ Killer, the addicts' son, and worst of all that filthy Tozier boy- there was no stopping her tirades. That was, truly, part of why he could never understand Richie's jokes. He just wanted to ignore the fact that his mom was there until she wasn't anymore. Richie, on the other hand, had a habit of dealing with all of his problems by making jokes. If Mrs. Kaspbrak was what was keeping him from seeing Eddie, of course, it was her making jealous excuses. She dragged Eddie off to the doctor for nothing again? Obviously, she needs a refill of her birth control pills so that she doesn't end up with a little one that looks too much like Richie for Eddie to handle. His Mrs. Kaspbrak jokes had died off since they started dating, sure, but the ones he let rip since had a serious punch.

Some things never change, he thought to himself.

Between sobs and fits of rage, his mother managed to spit out, “How could you do this, Eddie Bear? It’s okay, just,” she swallowed thickly and a terrifying clarity washed over her. “Just give the little wretch to me. We won’t have to worry about it anymore. You’re too fragile to be-”

Rolling the blanket back, he couldn’t hide the disgust on his face. “School project. Did you forget that you signed the permission slip at the first parent-teacher conference of the year?” he scoffed, rolling his eyes and going up to his room. 

It was so easy, sometimes, to think that he was impervious to her insidious words, but sometimes- fuck. She just had a way of making him feel like absolute garbage. Maybe he deserved it, he thought, putting Megan down on the bed and retrieving his Calculus homework from his bag. That was a seriously awful trick and any parent would be mad. Just as he thought that, her insistence that they wouldn’t “have to worry about it anymore” washed over him. What the fuck had she meant by that? She wouldn’t have-

No. No, he couldn’t think of his mother like that. He couldn’t. She wouldn’t.

Still, every time the doll cried and Eddie couldn’t figure out what it wanted, he jumped, growing more and more frazzled by the second. Eventually, he had developed a pattern, trying to crack the algorithm. Unfortunately, it was randomized- not unlike a real baby, he supposed. Between the constant screams, his mother cranking the volume on the TV up as loud as it would go, and his own attempts to focus on anything else at all, eventually, his body quit, leaving him on the floor, passed out, with the doll on his chest, sandwiched between two pillows and his copy of War and Peace unfolded on his face. By the time Richie crept into his bedroom window, Eddie was in the middle of the weirdest dream- babies barking in Russian, his mother, played in his dream by Roseanne Barr, tossing him into the quarry, and Bev and Richie, both pregnant, telling him to choose before they must duel for his hand.

Richie, however, was blissfully unaware of any of this. From his perspective, he was coming in to his greatest dream. Eddie and a baby. That was just about it. His family, as it would matter to a grown-up Richie so far from Derry he might not even remember why he fucking hated it so much. 

As he crept in the window, the sight of Eddie with a baby on his chest nearly knocked him back out of it. “Lucy, I’m home,” he whispered, moving the book and doll aside and kissing him gently. His bubble, however, was pretty solidly burst when Eddie opened his eyes, took one look at Richie and burst into tears. Startled, he laid down on his stomach next to him and pulled him in his arms, rocking him back and forth. For a couple minutes, Eddie couldn’t even manage words. He just cried and cried. When the tears seemed to slow, Richie asked quietly, “Hey. What’s this about?”

“Real babies can’t be this hard,” Eddie said. He may have been oversimplifying, sure, but he also knew that if he gave the real reason, Richie would be pissed. He wouldn’t put it past him to climb back out the door and knock on the front door specifically to give her a piece of his mind. That wasn’t what he needed. Right then, what he needed was exactly what he had. Still, there had to be some sort of explanation. He didn’t usually break down like that for no reason.

That was a fact that Richie knew well. “What do you mean?” he asked, trying to piece together what had triggered this reaction.

“The programming has to be faulty,” he sniffed, defiantly pawing the tears from his face. “Wouldn’t stop crying,” he said, picking the doll up by the foot and turning it over in his hands. “I changed its diaper. I fed it. I burped it. I rocked it. I put it down on pillows to simulate a crib,” he gestured to the cozy little laundry basket and Richie nodded, impressed with the improvisation. “I tried shaking it to death which only made it louder.” Richie laughed at that, even though he knew he shouldn’t. Eddie shot him a glare that he knew meant beep beep, in as much as Eddie would say it. “By that point, Mom was on a tirade so I started to out-tech it. The speaker is in the chest so I put a pillow between it and me which stifled the sound until it made a weird clicking noise and I’m pretty sure the only reason it stopped making that horrible sound was because the battery died or something.” He looked at it cautiously before flopping backward with a groan. “I think  _ my  _ battery died.” Just as he did, the Baby Think It Over started to scream again. This time, all it merited was a pointed “Fuck,” accompanied by Eddie flipping onto his stomach and whined. “I can’t do this.”

Fortunately for Eddie, Richie was up for the task. “Or she’s more lifelike than you think and our daughter wanted to fall asleep on her daddy and that’s why the pillow thing worked?” he suggested, repeating the movement with himself and getting a quieter response. “I’m serious,” he laughed, nudging his boyfriend with his foot. “Hi, Meg. Let’s see what you need, huh?” he mused, bouncing the doll lightly. “Walk me backward through what you did?”

“Suffocated, Strangled, Threw…” Eddie’s muffled voice recounted, then, after a pointed nudge from Richie, added, “Skipping to the relevant parts, sang to, burped, fed…”

“Let’s try changing  _ her  _ diaper?” Richie suggested, leaning into the humanization of the doll, hoping that would help Eddie.

Eddie propped himself up on his elbow. “Let’s? As in both of us?” he asked incredulously.   


It had seemed like a no brainer to Richie. “Yeah. I mean, we’re gonna do this together one day, aren’t we? Might as well do the robot one together, too,” he said, as simple as fact. 

There was that gooey, warm feeling again. Eddie couldn’t be sure if the sudden increased heart rate was another panic attack or just Richie, but- yeah, no, he was sure it was Richie. What seventeen-year-old boy says that? Furthermore, what seventeen-year-old boy is so stupidly endeared by it that he’ll actually do it. “Richie, I-” he stammers, moving to his knees, feeling a little guilty that he had made such a big deal about this part. 

Richie cut him off with a kiss, pulling them both to their feet. “C’mere. Grab the spare,” he said, pointing to the small bag of supplies that worked with the doll’s monitoring system. “Open it up and lay it out flat,” he prompted. Richie laid the doll on her back and made a few doting noises that made Eddie laugh. Before long, they’d completed the diaper change and Richie turned to Eddie and gave him a smile, prompting a high five. “Boom. Teamwork. See, it’s not so bad when Heather Has Two Mommies.” 

Shaking his head, Eddie continued to prod at the doll dejected. He knew it wasn’t real. On some level, he knew that this had no bearing on whether or not he’d be able to handle a real baby… some years down the road, when he was a “grownup” for what that was worth, living with just Richie, and it was their kid. Not a mutated game boy with too much fucking volume. On some level, he knew that. 

It didn’t change the fact that he felt like absolute shit that he had been left alone with the thing for a couple of years while Richie was gone and couldn’t do anything with it. Then, Richie walks in the door… or window… and everything’s fixed. Is that what was going to happen with their kids, someday? He’d be the bad guy and then Richie would be the fun one that just gets it? Of course, it would be. Their kids would love Richie. They’d worship the ground he walked on just like he did. Maybe Mike had been right about that resentment.

As if on cue, Richie beckoned Eddie toward him and wrapped him in a tight hug. “C’mere, babe. It’s not that bad,” he pressed a kiss to Eddie’s temple and then took a step back, looking him squarely in the eyes. “It’s just for this week, and then we get to send the Terminator back to where it belongs.”

“Why are you so good at this?” Eddie asked, tugging Richie down into bed and pressing himself against him. He laid his head on his chest and smiled.

Folding his arms behind his head, he kicked his shoes off the edge of the bed and laughed. “I told you aaages ago. I’ve got chicks from here to Humptulips.” He rested his cheek against the top of Eddie’s head and smiled again. “There are countless Mini Trashmouths scattered across the globe.”

Eddie looked up at him and rested his palm flat on his chest. “Seriously,” he prompted, not wanting to repeat the question. “I don’t get it. How?”

They were quiet for a while. It wasn’t that easy of a question. It didn’t even really occur to him that he was good at. “Seriously?” He mused, watching out of the corner of his eye as his boyfriend nodded. “I don’t know. I like kids,” he said, aiming for nonchalance but landing on something that was much more lame after a while. Eddie’s expression didn’t really change. Richie sighed, pushing his glasses up onto the top of his head and scrubbing at his eyes before lowering them, “I think I just don’t want any kid to have to deal with the shit we did.”

That was more like the reason he’d been expecting. He gave a thoughtful hum, leaned up and kissed Richie just under his jaw, and closed his eyes, hoping that Richie’s presence would chase away any more bad dreams. It wasn’t long before he was asleep. Richie snagged his copy of War and Peace from his backpack and started to try to catch up to where Eddie was so that they could argue over it in the morning.

Sometime around 2, the quiet in the house was shattered by a shriek from the doll in the laundry basket. Richie slid himself out of bed quietly and pulled Megan from her makeshift crib. “Sh. Let's not wake the neighborhood, huh?” he said sleepily. He retrieved the baby bottle from the bag and tried that first. Success. She switched to a happy suckling noise and Richie couldn’t help but smile at his triumph. Once that was done, he sat her for a while on his chest as he leaned back against Eddie’s dresser and looked out the window. 

He glanced back at his boyfriend, asleep, and let himself picture a time not too far down the line- five, maybe ten years- where they were doing this together for real. A baby with soft skin and big eyes and sticky little fingers reaching out to encircle his. In this fantasy world, he thought to himself, he’d definitely be a dad who sings his kid to sleep. Why not give it a shot, now? “You with the sad eyes…”

Ever the light sleeper, Eddie had been up the whole time. Richie, for his credit, had done everything he could to let him sleep, but it was no use. He was awake. And he was glad he was. Through sleep lidded eyes, he watched the quiet serenade that made his heart skip a beat. Suddenly, he wondered if having his boyfriend as a partner for this project was the right choice, after all. Witnessing this, he was fairly certain that they’d be parents by the end of summer were it biologically possible. Effective teaching tool, my ass, he thought to himself, as Richie’s hushed voice closed out the song. 

After he let him have his moment, Eddie let his hand drop off the side of the bed reaching out to him. “Chee, come back to bed,” he whispered. When he got no response, largely because Richie had marked it down to a figment of his imagination, he tiptoed out of bed himself and knelt by his side, reached for Megan and put her back in her laundry basket cum bassinet gently. “She stopped crying a while ago,” he said, helping him back to his feet.

Richie gave a sleepy smile. “You called her she,” he said, voice low and gravelly.

“I did,” Eddie replied, stretching onto his tiptoes and weaving his hands into his boyfriend’s hair before kissing him. Smiling into the kiss, Richie walked them both back to the bed.

The kid discussion didn’t end with their residency in Derry. It floated with them throughout their entire lives. 

“Richie, no!”

“Richie,  _ yes _ !”

Smiling broadly with his arms full of supplies and a leash in his hand with a dog, clearly no more than a few months old but already larger than a toddler and, by the looks of its paws, nowhere near done growing, Richie stopped in the doorway of their house. “No, you did not come home with a dog!” Eddie said, shocked.

“Yes, I did come home with a dog!” Richie answered, nearly bouncing with excitement rare to see in a 32-year-old man. “Meet Chewie, short for Chewbecca!”

Looking between his partner and their apparent pet, Eddie laughed. “No.” He was bewildered. They had just discussed getting a dog the night before, tossing ideas around. Maybe a Pomeranian or a Yorkie. Something small. Definitely no bigger than a Jack Russel. This puppy looked like it could eat a Jack Russel and still have room for a Yorkie Peppermint Patty. It looked like it could take Eddie out with one paw tied behind it’s back. 

Richie seemed to completely miss any reticence in Eddie’s reaction. “Yes, that’s her name,” he said, setting down the bags from the pet store and lifting Chewie into his arms.

“Her name?” Eddie asked. 

“Yep.”

Resolve crumbling already with the literal puppy dog eyes, Eddie made his way from the kitchen and stared at the pup. “What do you know about her?”

Suddenly coming to the realization that, maybe, Eddie wasn’t 100% on board with the idea, Richie switched into smooth recovery mode. “That she’s the second cutest thing I’ve ever seen, ever, she’s had all her shots, and that she’s ours,” he said innocently, bringing her up to his cheek and nuzzling at her.

“What breed is she?” he asked, trying to get more hard facts past ‘cute’ and ‘has had all their shots,’ which, to be fair, is more than he could say for Richie at the moment, considering that the stubborn ass refused to go get a flu shot because he ‘wasn’t that old.’ 

Trying to avoid the possibility that Eddie had any idea of the breed, he botched the name with a shrug. “I don’t remember. Lionbringer or something?”

“Leonberger?!” Eddie yelped, nearly falling over his feet. “Richie, they get to be huge!”

“So?” Richie whined. “She’ll protect you from the mean Hills of Beverly. And also,” he said, raising one finger and squinting, taking a step back which never meant good things for Eddie in an argument. As soon as that finger went up, he knew he’d been had. This time, by the addition of “you knew the breed as soon as I mispronounced it. You want a dog as badly as I do.” “We're not ready for kids yet, but maybe this is a good first step.”

The mention of kids knocked the wind out of him. He just couldn’t put his finger on why. The last time the topic had come up was the night California passed Prop 8. They had briefly toyed with the idea of running out and getting married before they decided to make it illegal again. After reading it over, however, Eddie had his doubts about the validity of it, anyway. Sure, they were in California now, but New York was always a possibility, and with Richie touring, if something were to happen in most any other state, there still wouldn’t be any spousal privileges afforded him, so what difference did it really make? They’d wait until it was national.

As they lay in bed that night, Richie rolled over to Eddie and asked the question that had been nagging him all along. “What if we want kids?” It had floored Eddie. He hadn’t really thought of it that way. Marriage on adoption papers was certainly a good thing. And schools would probably like to see two names. But as soon as those names were two men, even in Hollywood, it may have negated it all anyway. 

They’d talked about it for a while that night. But as soon as they fell asleep, it was like it had never happened. For whatever reason, when the topic was dropped, it was dropped. Hard. 

“You said second cutest…” Eddie said, softening and scratching Chewie behind the ears. Still, he kept his eyes on his partner.

He moved as close to him as he could without squishing her between them. “Easy, babe,” Richie replied with a wink. There was certainly no need for Richie to repeat just how he felt about Eddie on that front.

“She is pretty cute…” Eddie admitted with a begrudging sigh. Victorious, not that there was any other possible outcome, Richie leaned down and kissed Eddie gently, covering Chewie’s innocent eyes. They loved that dog as much as two people can love just about anything. 

Years and years prior, though, four little boys doted heartily on an even littler one. Georgie Denbrough sat on the curb sobbing with a skinned up knee as Richie and Eddie were on their way to meet up with Bill and Stan in town. Noting the scene before them, they made a beeline for him, Richie immediately on the lookout for bullies, ready to fight anyone who’d made him cry, and Eddie fishing in his second fannypack for the disinfectant spray and bandaids. 

“Hey! What happened, Georgie?” Eddie asked, crouching in front of him. 

Through snotty sobs and catch breaths, Georgie answered, “My shoelace got caught in the grate.” He pointed about ten feet up the block to a storm drain accusatorily.

Relieved that the threat was only environmental, Richie began to react in a way that was entirely exaggerated for the situation, but perfect for a crying kindergartener. “You mean the sewer bit your shoelace? Why I oughtta…” He turned on his heel and immediately switched into his best pro wrestler meets Popeye meets The Hulk meets Curly Howard fighting stance. His gangly limbs flailed as he launched on the attack.

Eddie busied himself on cleaning up the younger boy. “You know, when I was little-”

“Was?” Richie asked incredulously before returning to his cartoonish grudge match.

“Shut up, Richie,” Eddie barked, earning them a laugh from Georgie. He turned back to the boy pointedly. “ _ When I was little, _ I used to be the only one of us who could tie a bow.”

The little one's eyes lit up. “Billy can!” he volunteered. Georgie idolized his big brother, Bill, more than any kid Eddie had ever met. To be fair, so did he. He was pretty sure that Richie and Stan did, too. Bill was their fearless leader and, being the oldest of the four of them, he was the de-facto big brother to them all. 

_ “Now _ ,” Richie corrected with a snort, stomping the grate hard as Eddie put a dab of antibacterial ointment on the scrape. Richie laughed, then picked up a discarded beer bottle from the side of the road and threw it at the grate as though he was conking an attacker over the head with it. “When we were your age, he couldn’t.” 

Eddie thought to himself that, even though his heart was in the right place, he would laugh hysterically if Richie fell into the sewer system. There was no way he was chasing into the sewers for anyone and it would serve him right for being such a pain in the ass. But he’d have to help him out and make sure he was sufficiently clean and healthy. That didn’t mean that he’d be free from the ensuing lecture about how much he deserved it. He shook his head and refocused on Georgie. 

He sat down Indian-style on the road in front of him and worked at peeling the paper and backing off of a bandaid. “I bet he ties yours, doesn’t he?”

“Yeah. If he had double knotted them for me, I wouldn’t have fallen,” Georgie said, sounding much grumpier.

Shaking his head, Eddie answered, “You might have.” With timing too perfect to have been planned, Richie wiped out and busted his ass on the street, cursing loudly and earning another loud laugh from Georgie. “See?” Eddie said, jerking his head toward the klutz, “Nobody can predict that kind of stuff.” He smiled then looked up at Georgie, finished with the bandaid.

“Not everything's Bill's fault,” Richie groaned, rubbing his bruised ass as a proxy for his wounded pride. “Only most things,” he added quickly with an exaggerated wink as he came to stand beside Eddie.

“Yeah,” the designated healer added, “he can protect you from some stuff, but trust me, you don't want to have someone over top of you, breathing down your neck all the time,” he said, the deep implications of his still unknown to his best friend. 

Richie squatted down so he was at a closer level to the other two boys. “Besides, you have 4 big brothers, kiddo. If you're gonna blame Bill, you gotta blame us too,” he said, gesturing between the two of them. Then, he widened his eyes, comically oversized behind his coke-bottle glasses. “Do you blame me?” he asked, framing his face and batting his eyes like a cartoon princess.

Shaking his head, startled by Richie’s suggestion, Georgie threw his arms around his neck. “No!” he cried out, hugging the older boy tighter.

“Good,” Richie grunted, hugging him back tightly. Then, he looked over at Eddie and gave a sneaky smile. His tone grew nasally and pinched, sounding impressively like a side character in an old black and white gangster flick. “Now, look here, see. I'm gonna show ya how to tie them laces so's they ain't never coming untied!” He bumped his friend out of the way and took his place on the pavement. Eddie moved up to the curb next to Georgie and hugged his knees tightly, watching the interaction closely. “Bunny ears? Nah, that ain't how it goes,” Richie coached sharply as Georgie giggled.

Even after they were married and everything was settled, the journey, of course, couldn’t be smooth. Coming in from the hospital where Ashleigh, the young woman from whom they’d agreed to adopt her baby girl, had just given birth, the pair was solemn and quiet. Trying to piece together the day they’d had, they sat on the couch at opposite ends. Occasionally, one would begin to cry and the other would move to comfort them, but there was no comforting. Not that day.

Around midnight, Richie had finally managed to get himself together enough to stand, offer Eddie his hand, and tug him into their bedroom to get ready to go to sleep. Tomorrow would be another day and, frankly, it couldn’t be as bad as that one.

Finally, an hour or so after going to bed, Eddie was the one to break the silence. It was quiet, hardly a whisper. “I can't believe she changed her mind,” he said to the ceiling. “We just spoke to her yesterday.” 

Richie shook his head almost imperceptibly. He’d been thinking the same thing for much of the afternoon. She had let them be so involved. They were at every ultrasound. They took her shopping for maternity clothes. They had made sure that she had always had everything she needed. She had said not twenty-four hours earlier that she was so ready to hand the kid over to them and be on with her life. But that morning, at 8:38, when the nurse came out to tell them that it was okay to go see the baby, they were immediately intercepted by a social worker. Ashleigh had taken one look at the baby and broke down into tears. She couldn’t give her up. She had named her already. The woman was sympathetic, having seen it happen time and time again, but her hands were tied. And so, unfortunately, were theirs. 

They’d left the diaper bag with the nurse and promptly left and were left to pick up the pieces.

Turning on to his left side to face Richie completely, Eddie seemed to struggle to find the words. “What do we do now?” he asked, feeling the tears threaten to return.

That was a good question. He didn’t know how to answer it, in truth. As much as it killed him to say it, he suggested the only thing he could. “We go back to square one.”

“I don't know if I can do this part again,” Eddie said, shaking his head and burying his face in his arms. 

This loss was a pain he could never have imagined. The baby was never technically, legally theirs. They were healthy and going to go on to live a happy life, just not with them. The whole thing made him feel ridiculous; crying like they’d lost a child they’d never really had. A child who was alive. Just not theirs. Not anymore. Not like they'd been planning for months. When they’d called their lawyer to tell her that she needn’t be bothered to come down with the paperwork, her first instinct was to talk about New York’s laws and their options for suing for this and that. The thought had never even crossed either of their minds. That wasn’t the issue. It wasn’t about the money or the time. They couldn’t even say, truly, that they blamed her. They wanted to be parents, so they understood, obviously. However, a lawsuit wasn’t going to do them any good. It wouldn’t mend their emotional well being. It certainly wouldn’t get them a baby.

Scooting past the center of the bed, Richie found himself flush against Eddie. He maneuvered himself into the space between his husbands and brushed the tears away, trying to be as sure and supportive as he could manage. “We won't,” he said, which earned a sardonic laugh from his husband. Richie, however, wouldn’t hear it. “Eds, I promise. This is not happening again.” Seeing the way Eddie shook his head dismissively, Richie adjusted himself so that they were eye to eye. He kissed him gently, then said, as confidently as he could, “The next time is the time.”

“Don't make promises you can't keep.”

Richie closed his eyes, swearing it both to himself and Eddie. “I'm not.” He kissed his husband again, wiping away his tears before realizing he apparently had some of his own. “This wasn't our kid.”

“This isn't…” He closed his eyes tightly in an attempt to stop the tears. “It's not like we can make one ourselves.”

“No, but we can give it the college try,” Richie suggested, sliding his hands down to Eddie’s ass and pulling him even closer. It was a weak attempt, he knew, but he had to try. He wouldn’t be himself if he left that hang.

Scoffing because he knew well that his husband didn’t mean it- well, he did, but not in any serious capacity right now- and that he should have expected the response, Eddie chided, “Not helping.” Somehow, though, it did. It didn’t make it better, but it felt more normal. They, Richie and Eddie, would figure it out. 

Managing to let out a burst of air that sounded like it may have wanted to be a laugh, Richie answered, “I know, I know.” The situation was awful. There was no denying it. But, they were fortunate enough to know that they had other options. Couples tried for years to conceive and adopt. They knew that.

They’d been trying to ignore the one glaring factor to their rapid processing. A large reason they were getting pushed along so fast was because of Richie’s name. They knew it. Their lawyer had said that it might help. They’d been thankful. All Richie could hope, if it was true, if the agency didn’t just look at their file and go ‘YES THEM,’ was that it would continue to help. “We'll figure it out. Maybe Bev's got a womb for rent,” he suggested, knowing that surrogacy was going to be their best bet to keep themselves from experiencing this again. Eddie actually laughed that time and Richie felt the lump in his throat start to dissipate. “We’re gonna be fine,” he said gently, wrapping Eddie in his arms and nestling himself into the crook of his husband’s neck.

Years earlier and a coast away, Richie was fighting to be the sole object of Eddie’s attention. It was a gloomy day in Mid November and what Richie really, truly wanted was to be having sex with his boyfriend. That was about it. That was the sole point of his entire existence at that moment. 

His ministrations hardly registered as a blip on Eddie’s radar, though. He was glued to MTV News, their news of choice- Richie claimed once in a set that it was ‘the Diet Coke of news, makes you feel like you’re making the lighter choice, but in reality, you’re still rotting yourself away with the same shit that’s in the full version’. It was the same Breaking cycle that had been playing on low all evening. “Jesus,” he hissed, disgusted and shook his head, causing Richie to grab a fistful of hair to keep him in one spot. “Some people should never have kids.”

“Yeah,” he responded, clearly not paying a lick of attention to anything but the tendon on the side of Eddie’s neck he was trying to trace with his tongue.

Eddie still stared at the screen out of the corner of his eye, appalled and horrified by the scene. A former pop star's most recent descent into madness. The man was someone he, in childhood, had adored. Now, the celebrity’s thrilling stories were getting increasingly and increasingly abhorrent. “Can you imagine? What in the everloving fuck is going through his head?” 

Rolling his eyes, Richie provided his standard response to anything news-media-related. “I don’t know. Probably drugs,” Eddie grabbed him by the cheeks and directed his attention to the screen. Putting the scene together piece by piece. “Okay, definitely drugs this time,” he said definitively. Once upon a time, he’d held the man in high regard. Hell, 15, 20 years prior, who hadn’t? But the whole fairytale farm idea was creepy, disregarding the fact that carnivals left him largely unsettled, but add to it the weird fascination with child stars? No. No, that man’s Crazy Train had jumped the rails a long time before and Richie wasn’t even surprised anymore. It was appalling and horrifying, but it hardly warranted a shrug.

“Still, Richie, that’s a baby,” he said, pointing at the infant, draped in a blue swath of fabric and put in a precarious position by its father, of all people. 

Resigned to the fact that Eddie was Not Having It then, Richie sat up and clasped his hands between his knees. “Yeah, babe, but you know the kid’s name. This is…” There was no delicate way to phrase it, so he just decided to go for it. “He’s doomed anyway.” Eddie was shocked, to say the least, by how blunt he was about it all, but it made some sense, he guessed. Richie simply shrugged. “We’re not talking about the most stable home life, to begin with.”

It still didn’t sit well with Eddie. “But that’s…” He opened his mouth to try to come up with something intelligent to say but could do no more than shake his head and cover his eyes. It was almost embarrassing. 

That much Richie could agree with. “I know.” There really weren’t words for the stupidity of it all. Somehow this man was seen as a ‘fit’ parent, but they had friends- okay, acquaintances that they liked enough to qualify them as friends since they didn’t really have any and couldn’t for the life of them remember ever having anyone but each other- who had been trying to adopt before they left Indiana and for the years since they’d been in California, but they were ‘unfit’ because they were a pair of men who had been in a relationship as long as Richie and Eddie had which should have qualified hem for common law marriage if nothing else, but, alas- the government had forgotten that pesky little clause to the First Amendment.

Suddenly, his tone grew serious. Sitting up straight and turning to face his boyfriend, Eddie grabbed Richie’s hands. “Promise me, if we ever have kids, you won’t ever let fame get to your head to the point that you’re endangering their lives for paparazzi exposure.” He thought it over for a moment, unable to picture Richie with a baby ever before, he added a quick “Or just, for any reason whatsoever. Fame doesn’t mean shit for child-rearing. They don’t have that type of wide scope perception.”

“Like that’ll be an issue,” Richie answered, rolling his eyes. If Richie wasn’t famous by this point, he was pretty sure it was never gonna happen.

“Promise me.” Regardless of how Richie was feeling about his prospects at that moment, Eddie had unyielding faith in him. He was the funniest man in the world to Eddie, so why wouldn’t a large population of said world feel the same? He stuck his pinky out and crooked it.

Obliging, he accepted the pinky promise. Quietly, he mused, “I’m not going to be famous.”

“Not yet,” his boyfriend corrected. “I firmly believe that this improv club is the start. Who knows who’s gonna see you. You’ll be famous because you’re good at this.”

Leaning over with a smile, Richie cooed and gave him a quick chaste kiss. “I love you,” he said, hoping it would be a more intimate thank you.

Accepting the kiss and pulling his boyfriend back on top of him, wrapping his legs around the taller man’s, he teased, “Yeah, yeah. You only say that because I’m complimenting you.” Richie pouted, giving Eddie ample opportunity to nip at the protruding lip. “I love you, too,” he laughed, realizing how ridiculous that was as a reaction, then added, “And you know I’m right.”

“You always are,” Richie conceded.

Eddie decided to himself that it was his turn to be the supportive one. “One day, we’ll have that life. You’ll see,” he said, tilting Richie’s head up. “We just have to do the hard stuff first.”

The right side of Richie’s lip began to twitch. He leaned in close tear and whispered, “My d-”

Reacting quickly, Eddie leaned up and kissed him, leaving Richie quiet. “We were having a moment,” he said, thumbing over Richie’s bottom lip. “Don’t ruin it.” He pulled him back down and kissed him again, laughing a little.

In a different living room, a different city, a different time, that very same couple was entertaining their guests, the rest of the Losers.

“This meeting of the Losers Club is officially in session,” Richie chorused as he ushered Bill and Mike into the living room and continued into the kitchen.

“What’s this about, Richie?” Bill called after him, sitting down beside Ben and taking his offered hand before pulling him into a hug, eyes never leaving the host. Mike leaned over the back of Stan’s chair and stole a swig of his beer, exchanging similarly befuddled looks.

“Can’t we have some preliminary fun before getting to the nerve-wracking conversation?” Richie asked- no, whined- as he brought out drinks for them and Eddie took their coats

“No,” Stan replied sharply at the same time as Bill asked, flattening his palm and raising his eyebrows, “Are you guys okay?”

Knocking Bill lightly on the side of his head, Ben interrupted. “What they mean to say is that when we get a call saying that our presence is requested immediately and that, no, we can’t know what it is until we’re all together, it’s a little less than comforting and we’re all on edge over it and it would be much better if we could all get the Damoclesian conversation out of the way first if you don’t mind.” He kicked Bev in the shin, trying to get her input, but she seemed pretty far away.

Crossing his arms as Mike cuffed him in the back of the head and crossed to sit next to his fiance on the couch, Stan reiterated, “No. What I mean is no.” Retrieving a throw pillow from behind his back in the tall winged armchair, he brandished it, ready to throw. “Talk, Richie,” he threatened teasingly.

As he returned from the hall, Eddie snaked his arms around Richie’s middle, stretching to his tiptoes to perch his chin on his husband’s shoulder. “We’re having a baby,” he said, beaming at their friends. He laughed as Richie nodded, pulling his hands to his belly and sticking it out a little.

“What?” Bev asked, eyes wide. She stood out of her chair, immediately sobbing and threw her arms around Richie’s neck, earning a questioning stare from her husband.

Not buying it, Bill quipped, “Really funny,” and sat back into the couch. Mike didn’t seem to be sold on it either, but looking at the way Ben and Stan seemed completely dumbstruck, not to mention the weepy hug session, it certainly gave him pause.

“Bev? Awful quiet over there,” Richie asked, giving her a knowing smile. 

She pulled back and looked quickly between the two of them. “You found someone?” she asked, thrilled for them.

“We did,” Eddie nodded. They, or more specifically, Richie, had asked Bev to surrogate for them about a month prior but she had said no. While Eddie would have loved an explanation, he didn’t blame her. It was a lot to ask.

Tears streaming down her face, she let go of Richie and moved to throw herself at Eddie. “I’m so happy for you guys.” She took a step back, like she was going to sit back down, then took both of them in her arms.

From behind, Ben was still confused by his wife’s reaction. “Bev?” 

There was a quiet, wordless exchange between Richie and Bev. He locked eyes with her. She shook her head, almost imperceptibly. He took her hand gently and nodded. She tilted her head slightly, opened her mouth as if to speak, then closed it again, kissing him on the cheek.

The woman turned back, Richie’s hand still in hers, and pressed herself back against him. “About a month ago, I went on a very romantic first date,” she said, a mischievous glint in her eyes as she addressed the four seated Losers, her husband included. “With Richie,” she clarified for Ben’s benefit only as he gawked. “He asked me to carry for him and Eddie,” she narrated. 

“You didn’t tell me that,” her husband said softly. “Why would you say no to Richie? You said at Christmas that you’d be more than willing to do it if they ever asked.”

When she opened her mouth to respond, Eddie caught her wrist. “Can I ask why you said no?”

“Richie never told you?” she asked, looking at him briefly, before turning to the man in question. 

Richie shook his head and pointed between the two of them, seeming to say “just between us.”

Missing the gesture, Eddie answered, “No. Every time I ask, he gives me a different answer and I’m just curious as to why.” Bev had turned back to him smiling and he seemed confused. He stepped closer to his husband and rubbed his arm gently. “Despite my inexplicable feelings for the jackass, I find it a little hard to believe that it's because you've been in love with Richie since we were kids and he could never do that to Ben,” Bev laughed at that, then cast an apologetic glance at Richie, one that said I love you, but no. Continuing down some of the more ridiculous reasons he’d been given, he added: “I'm also hesitant to believe that it's because you're a werewolf and don't want to pass your lycanthropy onto our kid.” Richie busted up at that one. Suddenly, he felt very insecure in asking. “Not that you need a reason, either, or that-”

“Eds, it’s fine,” she interjected. In lieu of the direct answer, she clasped her hand in his. “Your kid needs a cousin a little closer in age than Bekah and Josh.” She quirked her head toward Ben, then nodded as the pieces began to fall in place.

She nearly jumped out of her skin when she felt a pair of strong hands on her shoulder, turning her to face her husband. Ben’s eyes were bright and tear rimmed. “Are you-”

Bev smiled the brightest smile he could remember her ever giving. “Surprise?” she asked, hesitantly. Before she knew it, she was off the ground, being swung around by Ben. Stan had his face covered, happy tears streaming down his face. Mike was still watching Richie and Eddie, who’d exchanged a quick kiss and were whispering back and forth, sharing a seemingly private joke.

Bill, bless his heart, had yet to put all of the pieces together. “Wait. What’s happening here?” he asked, leaning forward. As far as he could put together, Richie announced that Bev was pregnant. What he appeared to be missing was whether the kid was Richie’s or not.

“To paraphrase Richie’s proposal, the womb is occupied,” Bev laughed, finally back on the ground, enjoying the attention from Ben, not that that was ever, ever in short supply. But watching the way he lit up- and the way Richie had lit up- the next generation of Losers was going to be the most spoiled, loved children ever. And she wouldn’t dream of it any other way.

Pointing up at the original speaker, Bill asked, “So, wait, but Richie…”

“Yeah, Bev kinda stole our thunder but yeah,” he smiled, pulling Eddie in front of himself. “We’re going to be dads, too.” Finally, the thought clicked into place for him, accompanied by a smack with Stanley’s weaponized throw pillow. Richie laughed. “We found a surrogate and it's all set to start happening pretty fast. Our first appointment was today, so maybe really soon,” he said.

All of the losers were standing, by then, and their congratulatory cheers and hugs and crying had begun, now that everyone was on the same page. 

Stanley, who’d been quite reserved about his reaction, finally made his way to Richie and Eddie. Once he had them in his hands, that reserve was gone. He pulled his friends into a tight hug and the dam broke. “You're gonna be great dads. Holy shit!” He then moved to hug them individually. “Congratulations!” he repeated. “About fucking time.”

A couple of nights earlier, Richie had come bounding in from a writer’s room session on cloud nine, only to find no one in their apartment. Odd, considering that Eddie had the night off. 

“Hey, babe,” he called out to the empty living room. He flipped open the bathroom door. Nothing. He headed up the hallway, shopping bag swishing in his hand. “Eds?”

From the office space they’d turned into a nursery, then subsequently stripped because looking at it empty was too painful, Eddie’s voice carried out into the hall. “In here.”

Nodding and opening the door, Richie started his story. “I got a phone call today. It was-” Seeing his husband in the middle of the floor, flipping through architectural magazines and looking at paint swatches, a bottle of wine half gone, and a pint of Strawberry Ice Cream with just a spoon. He paused and took in the whole scene. His laptop was open, to Pinterest of all places. He seemed to have offices and tv rooms and libraries and craft rooms and home bars pinned. Extra bedroom conversions. Through the speakers, Alanis Morisette spouted life lessons. All of these things, individually, wouldn’t have been so troubling. But combined, with the addition of Eddie’s old, worn college sweats and Richie’s oversized Ramones t-shirt, it was a little troubling. “What are you doing?” he asked, crossing his arms.

Eddie rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling. It was clear, from the red splotches on his face that he’d been crying. “Trying to decide what we’re going to do with this room since we’re never g-”

Interrupting the thought right there, Richie reached into his bag and pulled out the wrapped canvas with classic Winnie the Pooh characters. “I thought this might be a good nursery scheme,” he said, pointing out the wording on it as he knelt next to his husband. “You’re braver than you think.”

“Yeah, cute,” Eddie said, rolling his eyes. He didn’t mean to be an asshole, but he just wanted to put the whole thing behind them. He was tired of being broken up over it. It just wasn’t going to happen for them. They were, apparently, not meant to be parents.

Bouncing a little, he climbed on top of him and pulled his phone out of his pocket, smiling broadly. “Don’t you want to hear what my phone call was about?”

Groaning, he covered his face in folded arms. “Not really, Rich. I’m just…”

Richie pressed play on the most recent voicemail and put it on speaker, smiling broadly. “This is Melissa Carrera with RMA of New York. Your surrogacy match with Sky Cantor has been approved. Please call us back as soon as possible to set up our next meeting to start with the legal and medical processes. Congratulations on the next steps to expanding your family.” He put the phone down on his husband’s chest and unfolded his arms.

Eyes still closed, Eddie’s expression was completely unreadable. “Play it again.”

Happy to oblige, Richie pressed play. “This is Melissa Carrera with RMA of New York. Your surrogacy match with Sky Cantor has been approved…”

“Again.”

“This is Melissa…”

It was the equivalent, he supposed, of the feeling of seeing those two pink lines on that little stick of plastic. Sure, there was a lot to be done before even that point, but Eddie couldn’t help it. It was hope.

“We’re gonna be dads,” he said, tears in his eyes and his hands on either side of Richie’s smiling face.

Mirroring his body language, Richie laughed, “We’re gonna be dads!”

The rest of their night was devoted to what Richie called ‘trying.’ The way he saw it, if straight couples got to have the fun part, then they should, too. More Richie was something that Eddie would never complain about.

But six months later, while planning Bev’s baby shower, Eddie had a moment in the middle of Buy Buy Baby. “This is useless. I feel useless,” he said, spinning the wheel of a display stroller with enough force that it should have shot halfway across 7th Avenue.

“What?” Richie asked, turning back from the guest relations counter where he was trying to get someone to give him an updated printout of Bev’s registry. 

Glancing down the aisle behind him, then moving to Richie, he leaned against the counter next to his husband. “I just…” Eddie sighed. He really didn’t know how to phrase it without sounding ungrateful. “When everyone else is trying to start a family, there’s something they can be doing. As they get close, they have the opportunity to feel their kid growing and see that they’re there.” 

Richie furrowed his brow and nodded. He saw where Eddie was coming from, but when it came down to it, in just a couple of months, they’d have a baby. The sonograms and the doctor’s appointments were what killed him the last time. He’d let himself get invested too early. Granted, this time, there was legal protection. This baby had DNA that belonged to either Eddie or himself, so they had parental claims. Not that he was worried about Sky doing that to them. Still… 

“I’m more grateful for their existence than they can know,” Eddie continued, “but I just wish Sky was more willing to let us be involved in the process. You know?”

He understood. Of course, he did. Of course, it pained him that he wouldn’t be able to feel their kid kick or anything like that, but it wasn’t like they really knew this woman that well. It was better for all involved this way. “Yeah. I get that. But since whey do either of us do things the way ‘everyone else’ does? Besides, we don’t want to be in their way. They have a life and…”

“And even when people are trying to conceive. There are treatments they do and actually trying and standing on their heads after and-”

Richie considered it for a moment. Stranger things had happened, he supposed. “I mean, there’s no harm in trying. We’ve had some weird stuff happen in our life. Who’s to say-”

Moving back to his spot by the strollers, Eddie whined. “I’m serious, Richie.

“So am I,” Richie shrugged. They’d killed a shapeshifting, millennia-old clown with strange, intergalactic powers. It wouldn’t, really, have surprised him one bit if the deadlights had done something to him, or if Eddie’s near-death had granted him life-bearing powers. There was no way to tell if they didn’t try, he supposed. The sad part, he thought, was that even though he knew it was impossible, it really, honestly, wouldn’t have surprised him.

Eddie, however, was on a more realistic tangent. “And they get to be there. They get to feel their kid. Talk to them. See them growing. We're hardly gonna get any of that. What if we never bond with them? What if on some subconscious level they resent us for it?”

“I don't think resentment forms in utero,” Richie surmised. “We've got plenty of time for them to figure that part out on their own, like everyone else”

So, months later, they’d decided that Eddie would be the one to be there with Sky for as much of the birth as they were comfortable with and Richie would come when they were ready. Eddie had spent the whole day they were induced by their side. He’d bought them breakfast and they’d gone for a long walk around the park before driving them up to the hospital around noon to get all set for the induction. It had been important to Richie that Eddie have that time with Sky just to settle his own nerves that they were going to back out. Hearing them talk about how ready they were to have the baby and give Eddie and Richie the experience they’d had with their wife resonated with him and left him crying in the car. They’d hugged for quite a while before finally heading in. 

By the time Eddie had called Richie to tell him that it was time, New York was its usual gridlock. It was like something out of a rom-com. Frazzled, expectant father jumps from cab to cab, runs a block, runs down the stairs and sees the line for the subway, runs back up the stairs, gets into another cab, runs the rest of the way. Panting, he slides in the door, nearly crashing into the desk. “I’m Richie Tozier. I’m here for-”

With a bright smile, the receptionist turned the visitor clipboard toward him. “We know, Mr. Tozier,” she said, grabbing a sticky visitor badge and handing it to him. “Room 503.” By the time he got there, Sky and their wife, Liv, were having dinner with their little boy, Kris. He’d stopped in and said hello and thanked them, giving them a huge hug. Liv had pointed him toward the nursery, where the real reason for his visit was being held by his father in a glider. 

Immediately following his entrance, Sky had practically thrown Eddie out of the delivery room, insisting that he go get skin-to-skin time with the baby. He wasn’t going to argue with the person who had just given him a child. 

The nurses had welcomed him in and, in what felt like both a lifetime and a heartbeat, showed him to a big rocking chair behind a privacy screen. He’d unbuttoned his shirt and a young woman placed the baby on his chest. He didn’t even notice the way the woman’s eyes widened at the scar splayed across his skin. Even if he had, he wouldn’t possibly have cared. His heart raced and tears streamed from his eyes. “Hello, there,” he whispered, pressing a kiss to the baby’s head. “I’m your Daddy.” He watched as five tiny fingers flexed and two perfect lips parted with a breath as though shocked. “Yeah, right? How weird is that?” His heart melted as those teeny, tiny fingers wrapped around his index finger, considering that he knew he was already the one wrapped. “I was starting to think this might not ever happen, you know that? I love you so much.” 

Unbeknownst to them, their private conversation was not so private. Richie had come to a stop at the edge of the screen and frozen, the only thought in his mind that, whatever happens, eons-old magic be damned, he was never, ever going to forget that moment. That feeling. Hardly breathing, he just stared at the most beautiful scene in the history of the world.

“I’ve only held you for, like, ten seconds and I can tell you, I’m never letting you go. Never,” Eddie promised. “Your Dad and I are going to do our best. We’re gonna give you an amazing life. And your aunts and uncles are going to spoil you rotten.” He knew it was impossible, but he would have sworn that the baby smiled. Yep. Spoiled. “They are. Yeah, give that smug little grin.”

Unable to contain himself any longer, Richie stepped forward and leaned in, kissing Eddie on the forehead, then the lips, finally feeling the tears that had been threatening to fall all day break loose. He reached a gentle hand to the baby’s hair and smoothed it down gently. That was all he could ever have asked for.

A little more than a day later. Eddie and Richie made their way into their apartment. Richie carried the baby and the diaper bag as Eddie made his way to unlock the door, placing the car seat down by his feet. Before he could get a hand on the knob, the door swung open. “Welcome home!” Stanley said quietly, snagging him into a strong hug. 

Patti wasn’t far behind, chatting with Bev, baby Garnet on her hip. The rest of the Losers, including the Uris kids, in the kitchen moved toward the living room, eagerly awaiting the introduction of the newest Loser. 

“What's his name?” Josh asked, getting to the couple first. Ben was next, clapping Eddie on the shoulder. Instinctively, Eddie tucked himself under his friend’s arm. Bekah had declared herself photographer and was circling the adults getting every angle she could.

“Frances, or Frankie,” Richie answered, uncovering their little boy’s face a little more and repositioning him so that his aunts, uncles, and cousins could see him a little better. He shared a quiet glance with Eddie before adding “Frances George Kaspbrak-Tozier.” He looked over at a floored Bill. Mike wrapped his arm around his fiance’s back. “You wanna hold him?” Richie asked.

Quietly, Bill answered, “Yeah.” He should have known that someone was going to do it. Of course, it was going to be Richie and Eddie. He reached out carefully, answering again with a watery, “Yes.”

Their visitors didn’t stay long, only enough to give best wishes and tell them about all of the dinners in the freezer for them. 

Walking into the nursery with Frankie for the first time was an experience neither of them could have expected. Richie had been right, of course. The classic Pooh theme and the pale green color scheme was perfect. Right over the crib hung the little piece of artwork he’d bought to tell Eddie they’d been matched. They’d decided that was the place for it knowing that, in the middle of the night, one of them was going to need the reminder as much as they’d like to have it instilled in Frankie.

Still, the baby didn’t sleep in the nursery that night. The bassinet set up in the corner of their bedroom was as far as either of them wanted him. Even still, once Eddie had fallen asleep and Richie had laid there restless for what felt like ages, he crept out of bed and reached over the edge of the basket, resting on the bench by the window with his son flat on his chest.

A lifetime before, he’d made a decision. Now that he remembered it, he wasn’t about to pass up the opportunity. Very quietly, an old, familiar Cyndi Lauper tune came to mind and poured from somewhere deep memory. The entire time he sang, he was unable to tear his eyes off of the precious being resting over his heart. “So don't be afraid to let them show. Your true colors are beautiful like a rainbow.” 

“Hey,” came a voice from the bed, still deep with sleep.

He finally looked up to find Eddie shuffling toward him. “Hey. I'm sorry. Did we wake you?” he asked.

Eddie sat down beside him and rested his head on his shoulder. “It's fine.”

“No. You need to sleep,” he said gently. “The whole taking turns thing doesn't work if we're both up.”

Brushing his finger against the sleeping baby’s cheek, he shook his head. No, he was up. He was good. “We're parents. Sleep is off the menu for at least 18 years. We signed up for that.”

“Still…” He couldn’t help but feel a little guilty.

“Hey. My very handsome husband singing my newborn baby to sleep is not the worst way to wake up,” Eddie said with a laugh. He leaned up and kissed him tenderly, hardly believing that this was his life now. “This is the best feeling,” he mused.

Richie returned the gesture, feeling much the same. If someone had told that scared 13-year-old boy, running from the Paul Bunyan statue all those years ago, that this was the life he would have one day, he’d probably have told them to fuck off. But this really was it. He couldn’t possibly ask for anything more. “Who needs Folgers, right?” Richie joked. 

He wasn’t wrong, Eddie laughed. To be fair, though, they were probably going to. 


End file.
